For the love of food!

Macari Vineyards

The last stop of our wine tasting tour, provided by Vintage Tours was Macari Vineyards. This was the biggest vineyards of all the four places we visited, with 200 acres. As soon as we drove up, I could tell it had a lot of land. they had nice wooden structure, with outdoor seating to the left of it, surrounded by green vineyards.

When we walked in, I could tell this was a grand place, both in space and amount of things they had in there. And with lots of gifts, snacks, wines, and decorations, it still had enough space to walk around. This was really good because if the tasting area was too busy or too crowded, you can just walk around and check out the merchandise.

They had cute, funny, and useful gifts there, I particularly liked the dish cloth that said “This might be wine talking, but I love Wine.” They had a large fireplace to the left, I always like the look of the stone decorated fire wall.

And as some other wineries in the area, they were also rented for upcoming wedding, and they were setting it up in the room next to the tasting room. It looked really nice with the antique-looking chandelier.

I was very excited to learn that they were awarded 2014 winery of the year. They had a wooden plaque on their fireplace, and a banner over the wine tasting bar. Our tour guide, Jo Ann of Vintage Tours recommended some wines we should try, and from what I heard, it sounded really good!

So, we made our way over to the tasting counter, and a female staff greeted us with a nice smile. She showed us the wine tasting menu which had three options, based on which kind of wines you wanted to try (price ranging from $12 to $25). We just wanted to try couple of specific wines that Jo Ann told us about, so we didn’t select any wine tasting menu.

We asked for Early Wine and Dos Aguas. She brought out the 2015 Early Wine Chardonnay, and it is loaded with notes of golden pear, white flower, and green apple. It was fresh, vibrant, and had the sweetness that I really, really liked. This wine was so far the only wine that I truly loved out of all the wineries we visited during the Vintage Tours. I was so happy to have finally met the wine of my liking. I also heard that this is the kind of wine that you should drink within a year, as it is not the kind that ages after it is bottled.

Dos Aguas is a red blend, and as the name suggests, it represents the “two waters” that surround the vineyard; The Great Peconic Bay and the Long Island Sound. From what I read, “these two bodies of water create a unique climate that protects our vineyard and encourages a slow, steady ripening.” It is a blend of 81% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon and 9% Cabernet Franc. The wine if packed with red and black fruits, very deep bouquet of briarwood and leather. Firm tannins will allow this wine to continue to age gracefully.

After tasting these two wines, we decided to buy couple of Early Wines ($18/bottle), and we knew we didn’t need to worry about them running out the bottles, as we could clearly see the massive display table with tons of wine bottles, neatly lined up. They had the register at the end of the table, to have a smooth and easy flow.

Outside food is not permitted here, as most others. The difference is that they offer lots of food options here that you can buy, which was very convenient. They had cheese, charcuterie, chips, cookies, pop corn, etc. They also offered non-alcoholic beverage like water and iced tea as well, which was very thoughtful for the customers who makes this a fun family event and brings their children.

After we purchased the Early Wine, all happy and finally complete with the wines we love in our hands, we walked outside to say hello to their baby grapes. It is so interesting how these grapes will grow up to be a delicious wine by combination of love, care, and engineering…

This was the perfect ending to our wine tasting tour, thanks to Jo Ann of Vintage Tour. I am so glad she chose this winery for the last. For us, it was like she saved the best for the last! The staffs seemed more used to the people, both volume and servicing them with smile. We felt welcomed there and we were happy with our experience. Thank you Jo Ann for providing a wonderful winery tours! We are so excited to have our Early Wine at our home this Summer!